Movers and Shakers for Nov. 26

Post date:

Tue, 11/21/2017 - 9:53am

Jermain, Dunnagan &Owens P.C. announced three attorneys have joined the firm. Scott J. Gerlach has 10 years of experience in both business and commercial transactions and civil litigation. Gerlach earned his law degree from the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, cum laude, and his undergraduate degree from Campbellsville University. Robert A. Royce has joined the firm expanding the firm’s labor, employment and employee benefit trust practice. He has been practicing law in Alaska for over 30 years. Royce is a former Administrative Law Judge and a former Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alaska, where he represented the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, the Alaska Department of Labor and the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Royce graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego and received his law degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego. He clerked for Chief Judge James M. Fitzgerald, U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska after graduating law school. C. Cody Tirpak joined the firm in September. Tirpak’s practice focuses on civil litigation and commercial law. As a defense litigator, he has represented both individual and corporate clients in cases involving wrongful death, catastrophic injury, premises liability, real property disputes, environmental contamination, and contract disputes. After graduating law school, Tirpak served as a law clerk for the Honorable Michael D. Corey of the Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage. Tirpak earned his law degree from University of South Carolina and his undergraduate degree from Clemson University.

R&M Consultants, Inc. appointed three new members to its board of directors: Kim Nielsen, PE, Bill Preston, PLS, GISP and Tim Grier, PE. Nielsen is a senior waterfront engineer with more than 24 years of waterfront and environmental engineering experience in Alaska. She joined R&M in 2011 to lead the firm’s Waterfront Engineering Group. Nielsen holds a bachelor’s degree in ocean engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology. Preston is R&M’s vice president of the Geomatics Department. He has more than 17 years of experience in land surveying and mapping in Alaska. Preston joined R&M in 2000 as a college intern and graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage with a bachelor’s degree in geomatics. Grier is R&M’s group manager of Surface Transportation. He has 27 years of civil engineering experience managing and designing a broad range of highway and related transportation projects, including the past 10 years with R&M. Grier holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority announced the hiring of Wyn Menefee as executive director of the Trust Land Office. Menefee has been serving as the acting executive director since Sept. 1. The Trust Land Office is charged with generating revenue and managing the Trust’s nearly one million acres of land categorized in the following classes: forestry, materials and minerals, real estate, energy, program-related investments, and land. In fiscal year 2017, the TLO produced nearly $12 million in revenue. The revenue generated by the land office is then reinvested or available for the Trust to utilize for grants. In fiscal year 2018, the Trust anticipates granting nearly $18 million to state agencies, nonprofits, tribal organizations, providers, and individual beneficiaries across Alaska.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross named the Southcentral Foundation as one of the 2017 recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Baldrige Award is a Presidential-level honor, recognizing exemplary practices among American organizations and businesses including an unceasing drive for radical innovation, thoughtful leadership, and administrative improvement. Southcentral Foundation won its first Baldrige Award in 2011. It is a nonprofit, health care organization owned, managed, and driven by Alaskan Native “customers-owners” who live within a 107,000-square-mile area, including 55 villages reachable only by plane. Its unique health care delivery system combining mind, body and cultural measures of wellness produces 90th-percentile rankings for screenings such as diabetes, cardiovascular health and cervical cancer, as well as numerous other health care outcomes and quality measures. The Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 and is not given for specific products or services. Since the first group was recognized in 1988, 118 awards have been presented to 110 organizations (including eight repeat winners).

At its annual awards dinner Nov. 11, the Associated General Contractors of Alaska named Rep. Don Young as a member of the “Hard Hats” in recognition of “outstanding service to fellow Alaskans and the Alaska construction industry.”

Xavier Schlee, Alaska Basic Industries was named the Stan Smith Volunteer of the Year Award winner for his hard work on the Technology Committee, his instrumental work with getting the AGC Podcasting Series up and running and his work on the CIPF Social Media Steering Group.